Sapp responded to the controversy in a March 26 Facebook post where he defended his actions. The bishop said he told the ushers to close the doors for security reasons. “My directive was not about control,” he said. “It was about creating a safe, focused, and reverent environment for those choosing to give, and for those handling the resources.”
Sapp said people were taking his words and actions out of context, and he cited in his defense 1 Chronicles 29, which describes King David and leaders of Israel giving generously to the building of God’s temple.
John Gray: ‘Look at the Culture and Context’
John Gray is pastor of Love Story Church in Greenville, South Carolina. The church was formerly named Relentless Church before changing its name last year. Gray was previously a pastor at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church and for a period of time had a TV show on the Oprah Winfrey Network.
Gray told TMZ that when Sapp was asking for donations, there were “multiple things happening,” and then when Sapp asked for people to give as he did, “that can seem deeply offensive. And so I think it’s more incumbent upon leaders and pastors to truly be servant-leaders, shepherds, because I understand what it’s like.”
Gray mentioned that his own church does reverse offerings, where leaders put out baskets of money and tell people, “Come down and get what you need.”
“That didn’t make the news because, the truth is, that’s what the church should be doing,” Gray said. “We should be meeting the needs of the poor, the widows, the orphans, the elderly.”
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Regarding people being offended by Sapp, “We in the faith community have to do a better job of understanding and communicating biblical truth,” said Gray.
“I understand why you feel that way, and that’s not the message, and that’s not the heart of Jesus,” Gray added. “He wouldn’t say it that way. But please, respectfully, also look at the culture and context because [Sapp] wasn’t being wicked; he was culturally within brand.”
“So maybe the issue is not so much what he said,” Gray said, “but a culture that would allow that to be a language that’s expressed across pulpits. That, to me, is the bigger issue, and that’s something that we’re gonna have to reckon with over time.”
